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Wednesday, 31 October 07
think before you pink.. again.
this image brought to you by breast cancer action and their think before you pink campaign.
last day of this pink month. now, i'll admit, i actually do like the particular shade of pink that has found its way onto everything from water bottles, to m&m's to campbell's soup labels.. but the reason it's there is simply unacceptable.
so, i'll leave you with this last thought: this excellent link- how low will komen go, the winners, from the assertive cancer patient
disclaimer: while raising money for breast cancer is a noble cause, what isn't so noble is how much profit is made off the little bit raised. these same companies should be doing more. take all those profits, and well.. donate them to prostate cancer.. or, for crying out loud, give a measly $5 million to this band of parents who are doing all they can simply to make sure that their children get to graduate from high school. $5 million may seem like a big deal to some people, but to some of these companies - as we all know - it's just drop in the bucket. drop in the bucket vs a child's life. the next child could be the child of a CEO of one of these very companies, they may think differently then. lets hope it doesn't take getting to that point.
Posted by brooke at 03:55 PM
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annoyed.
i'm annoyed. what is new. i think i'll just end up being annoyed for most of this time in utah. i simply do not understand non-mormons who settle here. agh. this place, today, just isn't worth the beauty.
Posted by brooke at 02:09 PM
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Monday, 29 October 07
roar!
do you hear that ROAR coming from my apartment? i'll betcha you can (my poor downstairs neighbors). know what it is? it's the sound of a girl from the southeast (humid in the summer) and the pac nw (humid in the fall, winter and spring) with her first cold of the 2nd year of living in the desert. oh no, the roar is not my nose being blown over.. and over.. and over (that's just an added bonus). the roar is the sound of not 1, but 2 humidifiers going at full power. btw, each one can fully humidify 1000sq feet in 12 hours. Things should be just ducky in here in just a couple of hours. I may just go get a neti pot just to make sure that the snot doesn't get stuck in my sinuses like quick dry cement like it did last year. Oh no, I've hit the 2nd year wall.. thats enough to deal with. I am not ALSO going to deal with cement nose too.
Posted by brooke at 10:36 PM
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Sunday, 28 October 07
back.. and awake
i slept most of the day yesterday.. now i'm back from AECT. it was so worth the money i spent to go, it was worth the time away, it was worth getting up at 3.30 to go.
on my desktop i have notes from a variety of different presentations i attended - i got new ideas from most of them. i got to connect with someone who knows about reciprocal mentoring and hear that our study will lend something to the literature. i got to meet a friend of my chair who said that hitting the wall in the 2nd year is just par for the course. i got to inspire myself into pursuing my own research interests along with what we are doing in the research group. i'm excited, and i now see the draw to this conference. yep - i'll be in orlando next year - for more reasons than just getting to see my beloved aunt.
Posted by brooke at 07:50 AM
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Monday, 22 October 07
early punchy flight.
on wednesday morning i get to get up at 3.30 so that i can meet my friends at 4 so i can fly.. into the fires. whoo hoo. wednesday is going to be a great day. *note heavy east coast sarcasm* did i mention i'm not the best flyer? turbulence freaks me out. hahahaha.
Posted by brooke at 10:38 PM
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Sunday, 21 October 07
my weekend
yes - i am alive. i've not posted anything of interest because there isn't anything of interest going on in my life. i spent last week decidedly uninspired by what i'm doing here in utah. it was bad, really really really bad. i threw a fit one day in my office - when no one else was around - because of my frustration. really, all last week the only place i wanted to be was the dojo (dojo = karate studio) because i've now learned one whole staff kata, and am working on a 2nd. staff kata = much better than school.
so, this is how i spent my weekend. me and my codependent cats being very very lazy.
i'm feeling a bit better about things. i'm feeling a bit more inspired. maybe its just because, yes - i AM looking forward to my 60 hours in warm southern california. goddess willing i *will* get to dip my feet in the pacific ocean.
*note* the stats book - i only pulled out today, and got through 30 of the 50 pages due to be read by wednesday. only 30 pages? pick up cohen et. al, you'll see how dense that stuff is. v v dense.
Posted by brooke at 11:57 PM
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Saturday, 13 October 07
crushes
i realized on friday that i've developed a bit of a crush on a new friend. it's interesting to notice, and i'm glad i've identified it really quickly (the day after it set in). i guess that means i'm growing up that i'm able to catch these things so quickly. i'll admit - it's nice to have a new friend, but the crush is something i'd rather leave behind.
see, it reminds me that i'm single. and single. and even more single. it reminds me that, while i try to crush the feelings, i do have deep cravings of having someone to share my life with, someone that i can take care of, someone that can take care of me. i have deep cravings to be number one in someone's life, and to curl up with that someone every night.
i've started the process of filling out another heart of now questionaire. the course i'm going to take isn't for another 2 months, but i emailed early because i wanted to be on the list. see - i want to go to heart of now in december, and i didn't feel like being one of the one's to do the taking care of - i didn't feel like ending this semester and then heading home to run around for 4 days with my head cut off. i'd rather other's run around with their head cut off for me.
and so i start this process. the last time i did this was july of 2006. well, the last time i filled out a questionaire that is. i've filled out 5 of these - i think. i've filled out a lot of them. while i recognize that the end of the semester with 2 conferences to travel to isn't the best time to be looking at this process, it is a helpful time. it is likely that some of the answers may get written and re-written. and hopefully, what will get written will be answers full of honesty getting to some more bare bones issues that i've not yet gotten to in this process. i'm hoping that i will be able to talk about this single thing and understand it better.
and so.. so, i'd like to write some sweet conclusion to this -> i always like drawing things back together at the end. how do i connect this crush on my new friend and this heart of now questionaire? well- they are very much linked in my own mind, i just can't vocalize it yet. this is the part of it all i don't understand. why i can't have what my new friend has (this person is married) and why i end up with crushes and not the real thing. i do not want to live my life like this, i do not want to live the rest of my life looking in on what i want so much. it's just torture.
Posted by brooke at 11:23 PM
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Thursday, 11 October 07
grump, some more. or just sad, or ?
we worked out really hard at karate tonight. i don't usually work out that hard around people, because sometimes it brings things up for me, and i need to spend time by myself crying and letting it out. but tonight i couldn't leave when i needed too. or, i didn't want to, i didn't want to take off to take care of myself because i didn't feel like making the scene of leaving. so finally, when class finally ended, i really did just take off. i practically ran out of there.
--
my day was a good day. i got a lot done in the morning, i went to class, i got to sit at the national coming out day table for some time, and at the end of the day i got to connect with a new friend. but then things went down hill from there.
--
a confession. i think i made a friend feel bad. i talked to her about some of the things that i've been talking about with my new friends, and i think some of the things i said pertained to her. it wasn't intentional, i wasn't trying to get on her case - i'm just used to talking about my life with her.. but now, well.. my new friends understand the difficulties of me moving to utah, many of my friends around the department - people that i love and adore - don't understand because they are from here, or are part of the majority culture. it wasn't a good moment in my day. no, it wasn't a good moment in my day.
--
by the end of this evening, our teacher asked what was one thing we learned tonight. people were rambling about the wonders of working hard and all that crap. all i could think about was what occurred to me near the end of the hour at karate - oh god, this is what it's going to be like for the next 2 - 3 years. in karate, in school - pushing myself to my limits constantly. constant work, constant tired, constant personal tests. this is going to be 2 - 3 really fucking hard years. and then, then i want to get a job at a research 1 institution, and i want to be a mom, and it's going to continue to be hard. fuck. what did i learn tonight? the next years of my life - while they may be filled with a lot of good - are also going to be filled with a lot of suck.
agh.
---
i know, i know. my attitude should be better. and tomorrow i have crap to do in the morning and over lunch, but in the afternoon i get to go to a social with some of my new friends. and then i get to come home and hopefully be really lazy for the evening. i can't wait until 1.30 tomorrow.
Posted by brooke at 10:30 PM
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Tuesday, 9 October 07
grumpy
i'm grumpy because i take things too personally. i'm grumpy because it feels like every difficult thing i have to overcome is just one more thing standing between me and this damn degree. i'm grumpy because there is so much to do, and so fucking difficult, and i'm just so blasted tired. i'm grumpy because being in utah is difficult. it is more difficult than people may imagine, especially people who are a part of the majority culture, especially people who simply do not know how different my home is from this place. i'm grump grump grumpy.
Posted by brooke at 10:38 PM
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i wasn't supposed to be here.
daily i find myself humbled, and thrilled about this work that i am doing here at usu. i've understood why this feeling is such a present one for me, until today. and then it occurred to me. i wasn't supposed to be here. 5 years ago now my life was taking a down turn. i was in the process of leaving the working world behind because i couldn't handle it. after too many years of suffering i finally couldn't handle it. i threw in the towel and quit life. it was just me, my cats, a very messy apartment, and a goddess like downstairs neighbor. i had nothing, nothing at all.
and now. 5 years later and my life has done a 180. i have such a community of friends back home in eugene. and i have friends here. i'm making more friends here and i've not finished. and work - i get to work with leaders in my field (they are on my committee), and up and coming leaders in my field (they are on my committee too). i am incredibly blessed and i simply cannot believe that this is my life. yes, yes, i guess the life of a poor single phd student doesn't seem like a dream life.. but.. there are archives of this very blog that document it all. i don't like to read them because it's too much. it is just too much pain and i don't wish to revisit it. and so considering where i've been this is a dream life. and for it, for the opportunities i've been given, i am incredibly grateful.
Posted by brooke at 06:08 PM
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Sunday, 7 October 07
pink, pink, everywhere pink!
i go to the grocery store a lot. why? because i'm a crappy food planner.. and it just happens that smith's and @lbertson's are right on my way home, so it's terribly easy as well.
over the last week or so i've been hit by pink. everywhere, everything, pink! ice cream, saltines, juice, soup. seriously, everywhere. now, goodie for me - i'm starting to really like pink. i actually want to wear it, put it up in my home, etc.. and so i'm drawn to all this pink..
but last year i got to see barbara brenner of breast cancer action speak before i left eugene. she talked about the marketing attached to all these items, and actually spoke about things like - yoplait and all their cancer causing hormones donating $ to cancer. we buy their stuff, they cause cancer, they donate $ to assuage their guilt. kinda whacky eh?
before you purchase anything pink - click on that picture up there to learn about other things you can do to raise money for cancer stuff (e.g. donate directly to the cause), because even though i don't like what they are doing through all the pink, i do appreciate donating money to the cause. cancer sucks, i hate what it does to people. it ends too many lives too early, and something needs to be done.
want some places you can donate to?
Posted by brooke at 10:12 PM
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Saturday, 6 October 07
signs
that it is winter..
- i've pulled out my collection of hats.
- we got our first snow here - there is a dusting along the wellsvilles and the wasatch front
- i've not worn my chaco's in a week
- i closed all my windows and put my flannel sheets on my bed
that i am an adult..
- i got very excited when i realized i could actually afford a bagless, pet fur picking up, vacuum.
- i actually spent time wondering if i could find a vacuum that would also double as a steam cleaner for carpets
- i spent a long time talking to my ma about the wonders of buying a dishwasher
- i can't wait to get a humidifier!
- i would rather get a humidifier, dishwasher or a bagless vacuum for christmas than an 1pod.
that i'm a geek..
- my ma mentioned that she came across more of her research methods books, and i got excited at the chance to look at them.
- i got even more excited when we both realized that our friends jerry and ruth anne may still have some of their research methods books
- i can't wait for dad to send me his tufte books about presenting.
- i found another highlighter / ballpoint pen duo, and i'm excited to try it out to see what works better.. bick or this brand.
- i'm going to spend saturday night organizing all my stuff into files, because i now have folders, hanging files and a file cabinet. and i'm perfectly happy doing so.
Posted by brooke at 06:48 PM
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Wednesday, 3 October 07
really, is there any doubt why i want to leave this country?
Bush vetoes expansion of kid's health insurance plan.. (see below).
we can pay for war, but we can't pay for kids to get their basic health needs met? does it really seem logical? i mean, really and truly. sometimes it just makes me so freakin' angry.. i wonder why it is that i'm reading books about multiple regression instead of being on the streets demanding better from this country.. or selfishly trying to move to canada. damn, damn damn. i am just so angry and i feel so fucking helpless!
from cnn.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation expanding a children's health insurance program by $35 billion over five years.
Kids pull wagons full of petitions this week asking President Bush not to veto insurance legislation.
Bush exercised the veto at 10 a.m. ET before leaving the White House for a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to discuss the federal budget and taxes.
Democrats quickly took to the floor of the House of Representatives to condemn the veto of the bill that received bipartisan support.
"The president has rediscovered his long lost inner fiscally conservative self," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, in a mocking tone. "After an orgy of borrowing, spending and misspending on many dubious things, his target? Ten million low-income kids."
House Democrats also were quick to compare the bill's $7 billion annual cost to the money spent each month on the Iraq war.
"The president and Republicans in Congress say that we can't afford this bill, but where were the fiscal conservatives when the president demanded hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq?" asked Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois.
Some House Republicans, however, said Bush was right to veto the bill.
"The public can see that we're playing more political 'gotcha' than we are at really solving problems," said Rep. Todd Akin, R-Missouri, who said the legislation contained "all of these little hidden gizmos, among other things that we're going to provide health care to the children of illegal immigrants."
Akin also said the bill would have led to "a massive expansion of, basically, 'Hillary' socialized medicine," a reference to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and her unsuccessful health care efforts as first lady in the 1990s.
Democrats say the bill would not provide coverage to illegal immigrants.
Congress sent the legislation on the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, to the White House on Tuesday.
The Senate voted 67-29 Thursday to expand the program. Bush has said it's a step toward universal coverage.
It appears Congress lacks the votes to overturn Bush's veto. Though 67 votes in the 100-person Senate would suffice to override a veto, the 265-159 vote on September 25 in the House is short of the two-thirds majority needed.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said Tuesday that he won't schedule an override vote on SCHIP until next week or later. There is no time limit in the House of Representatives on when to bring the bill up again.
Under the legislation, the program would double -- from 4 million to 8 million -- the number of children covered.
In the Senate, 18 Republicans joined all of the Democrats in voting to expand the program from its annual budget of $5 billion to $12 billion for the next five years.
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah was among those Republicans who split from the president. "It's very difficult for me to be against a man I care so much for," he told his colleagues on the Senate floor before the vote. "It's unfortunate that the president has chosen to be on what, to me, is clearly the wrong side of this issue."
A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted September 27-30 found 72 percent of those surveyed support an increase in spending on the program, with 25 percent opposed. The poll's margin of error was 3 percentage points.
Bush and many Republicans contend the program's original intent would be changed under the bill.
The program gives coverage to parents who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private insurance for their children. Critics have said their concern is that parents might be prompted to drop private coverage for their children to get cheaper coverage under the bill.
The veto is the fourth of Bush's presidency. After not using his veto power at all during his first four years, the president has vetoed three other bills in his second term: two on stem-cell research legislation and one on a war funding bill with a Democratic timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
Posted by brooke at 10:54 AM
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less crab.
i think i got it all out, my crab. the poor HRC got an email full of my wretched anger about this lack of spine.
i'm not sure why i hit such a wall. it really is a matter of just taking each step and walking through the next week and a half. there is a lot to do and sometimes i fear that i've taken on too much. but i want to be employed after this tenure in utah, and so i feel like i need to do everything possible to ensure that - and that looks really like someone who does everything and anything offered to her to do. i'm questioning that. i'm questioning whether i am making the right decisions about taking on the world.
but even so. i've agreed to do it and i wonder why i am seeing such difficulty wrapped around it. why not just push through it, just take each step very deliberately and know that i can do this? why not?
i need to dig deep to get through this. my brain may be turning to mush, but i can acknowledge it and then stop it. i need to believe that i can do this with grace. really and truly.
Posted by brooke at 12:09 AM
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Tuesday, 2 October 07
craptastic mood.
Seriously, I think I hit the wall sometime between 2.30 and 3 today. A long long meeting that seemed to take a long time to get to the place that we seemed to be at the beginning. I dunno, I think I just have little patience with people this week - very very little patience with people this week. It started on Monday and pushing through getting an assigment done, and then tomorrow and having to be in class pretty much from 8.30 - 6. Ick.
And then, then getting an email from some liberal in Eugene encouraging people to boycott the Olympics. OH MY GOD. I may have had a diatribe about standing up and doing what is right, but, hopefully what came across in my diatribe was understanding and having compassion for perspectives we don't understand. I mean - TAKE POWER AND DO GOOD WITH IT. Don't take power like those who we object with. Don't make our fight look like the fight of those on the other side, dammit! Use the good to expand your perspective, to understand that POWER IS BAD, USE POWER TO DIFFUSE IT.
And darnit. If you are a liberal who has been in Eugene for, goddess, enough time to think that the world is just like you.. get in your car, drive 836 miles, and set up shop in Logan for 6 months. And your perspectives will grow - if you will let your mind grow. You will have to find compassion for people who are different than you, or else you will be very lonely.
Goddess. I would love to introduce you to Tom, Heather, Jon, Sherri, Virginia, Matt, Preston and JaNiel. I would love to show you the gifts that I get to have in my life because I moved here. The gifts found in people that if I were still living in Eugene I would have never opened my heart too, because I saw them as being the THEM.
Yes, I miss Eugene with all my heart. Yes, I want to go back to a place like Eugene. Yes, I struggle here. But do I regret it? Heck no. I don't, because of those people I just listed. Because even though I don't sound it, I have actually grown because of these people in my life. I have had to become a better person so I wouldn't be so freakin' lonely. I have seen that there isn't them and us, that there is just us and while I disagree with some of the things my friends believe in, I can still love them as dear dear friends. I count on these people daily, I could not survive this experience without them. Such gifts.
So, I'm irked about those damn liberals who have become just like those on the right who hate everyone. Because a liberal who hates someone because they are conservative or Mormon, or or or.. is actually worse than conservatives and Mormons and all those other people who hate someone because they are queer, or trans, or or or.. because liberals claim to love everyone. A liberal acting like a hateful conservative is worse, because they are doing the thing they claim not too. A conservative who hates queers, well - at least they aren't being hypcritical.
Oh, I am in a crab crab crabbbbbby mood!!! I feel sorry for any close minded liberal who crosses MY path. They aren't going to like it.
Posted by brooke at 11:09 PM
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Monday, 1 October 07
btw.
the human rights campaign.. hrc.org. has decided to back a version of ENDA - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that does not include our Transgender brothers and sisters in it's protections. Frankly, i'm furious. i'm tired of organizations like the hrc selling people out. they've taken the T out of LGBT and frankly, i don't support that action.
WHEN, WHEN, WHEN is the left going to understand that WE can DEMAND peace and justice? WHEN is the LEFT going to stop being spineless and know that we can be powerful and nice? that we can DEMAND justice for all? that WE CAN GET JUSTICE FOR ALL?
frankly, i'm starting to be ashamed of this left movement, because the people in power are not taking their power.
DARN IT ALL. STAND UP, DEMAND IT, KNOW THAT WE CAN HAVE POWER.. and that WHEN WE GET POWER, we can SHARE POWER, with EVERYONE, including those that want to take it to keep it and hold it for their own.
WE CAN TRANSFORM the power structures. WE CAN. WE CAN STAND AND BE EXAMPLES.
at some point, we will have to be examples, because soon, soon their won't be any belief that there is any movement behind our movements. that if those who represent us in congress don't take what is being handed to them, then we will become an even more helpless nation than we are now.
i know. i know. where am i? i've got my nose in books like 'applied multiple regression, correlation and analysis for the behavioral sciences.' i know, i understand i'm not doing my part. but this is my calling right now, pursuing this degree, understanding how i can be an activist from the ivory tower, understanding how i can use research monies for good feels like my calling. i hope you can respect that.
and on that note, i'll leave you with this seemingly random thought.. but - if you think - it's not that random.
"Dancing is not rising to your feet, painlessly, like speck of dust, blown in the wind. Dancing is when you rise above both worlds, tearing your heart to pieces, and giving up your soul." Rumi
Posted by brooke at 11:19 PM
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i should update
it's been a long last week. lots of stuff happened. i went to the open education conference and presented the research that i'm doing on localizing within same-language multicultural countries. thats' the pointy headed way of saying - readability. ha! but seriously, i had a good time doing so, even though i got waay tired in the process. yes, conferences are EXHAUSTING.
blah blah blah.
one thing that i did realize, considering where i was last year, is how happy i am, for the most part, at work. i mean, i love my job - for the most part. i love who i work with and for. last year i was beginning to realize that, while i was lucky to have funding, the situation was not what i wanted as far as a phd experience. it is continually humbling for me that i get to work for who i do, and, i am happy doing so. i also realize that i really like my chair. he's fairly new to the world of academia, but he is terribly conscientious about his job as a person's chair. he is also my friend h's chair and at least once a week i say to her 'we are incredibly lucky.' yes, yes we are. and yes, yes, i am. i am glad that i was able to advocate well enough for myself to get this new job working for this group of people who's way of being in the world is how i wish to be.
--
in other news. i'm seeing that i love being at karate. i am now at the dojo 3 days a week, maybe more - i need to find out the saturday schedule. while learning the weapons is frustrating, the patience of our teachers is astounding. i am grateful for their time and willingness to help me. i love learning these skills.
okay.
that's it. i'm procrastinating.
blah blah blah.
ps. have i mentioned that my house is a mess? yes. it is a big ol' mess, i mean huge mess. maybe sometime soon i'll get it clean. i hope so.
Posted by brooke at 10:46 PM
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